We Are MMIT

As a director of Client Delivery Services, David Hamstead focuses on establishing a replicable model for the implementation of new MMIT products and integrations. His team aims to provide clients with a positive implementation experience through efficient delivery services.

Tell us a little bit more about your role.    

My primary function is to support our team’s implementation of MMIT products. I’m continually evaluating our delivery processes to identify areas in which we can improve. As the client delivery services team is pretty large, with more than 45 people, each director oversees different aspects of implementation.

My focus is new product implementation, which means I help determine how we can best fold new products and integrations into our existing delivery processes and procedures. We figure out how a newly launched MMIT product should be configured, what’s required for client documentation, and how to best stage the implementation so we can provide a polished, seamless service to our clients.

How did you join the company? What in your background brought you to pharma?

My background is in the healthcare space, primarily with hospital operations and patient flow. Pharma was a new area for me, but I was seeking a growth opportunity that would allow me to gain more in-depth knowledge about the life sciences industry. About two and a half years ago, I reached out to a contact at MMIT and interviewed for an open position with the Client Delivery Services team, and the rest is history!

What does your day-to-day usually look like?

While every day is a little bit different, I do have some consistencies every week. Right now, my daily focus is on supporting our team and the product team on internal planning calls and client project calls for our Coverage Finder product.

I also assist with any FormTrak in Veeva escalations, plus advanced technical issues and new feature implementations. Even though MMIT is one of only three certified Gold Product Partners for Veeva, our development team is constantly adding new features and integrations to the product. I help communicate those improvements to the client delivery services team, so we understand how to deliver the new features to our clients.

What are some of the larger projects you’re working on?

Typically, my larger projects are the cross-functional ones. Whenever MMIT launches a new product, we typically take a collaborative approach to the first few implementations. Our client delivery services team works hand-in-hand with the product team to do a joint implementation. Once a few client projects have been successfully completed, we then transition the implementation process over to client delivery services.

That’s where we are now with Coverage Finder. I’m building out the processes for our Coverage Finder implementations going forward, and ensuring that the transition is smooth and all projects stay on track.

What are some of the common challenges of your role?

The most common challenge is probably balancing client expectations with realistic implementation timelines. While we strive to deliver the product as expeditiously as possible, there are sometimes delays. When clients cause delays, we try to be as flexible and accommodating as possible while balancing our other projects and deliverables. We’re usually able to meet a client’s deadlines despite any curve balls.

Another challenge is having too many cooks in the kitchen on the client side. We collaborate a lot with our client success managers (CSMs), who are on many of our project calls. They help us reign in the chaos and focus on the key stakeholders, so we can get what we need from them to move the project forward.

What’s been your career highlight to date?

I would say that my career highlight so far has been being part of the FormTrak in Veeva team from before its initial launch to now, when it has matured into this successful, valuable solution that so many clients rely on. In my opinion, it was really the epitome of cross-functional teamwork. Several MMIT teams worked on this project, and they meshed so well together to work through all of our challenges and get the product to where it is today.

What trends are you seeing across the industry that MMIT is in a unique position to help with?

There is a really big appetite for real-world data out there. When I’m talking to clients, they are often seeking real-world data to help drive strategic and tactical decisions for their brand, or for their area of focus in the industry. They tend to know exactly what kind of data they need, whether it’s lab data, claims data, specialty pharmacy data, or other specialty program data, like rebate and contracting. They know the outcomes they’re looking for, and what data will deliver those outcomes.

Our clients are really interested in using new datasets to figure out market trends and new targets that maybe they haven’t explored before. The unified dataset that Norstella offers, plus the integration of that real-world data into other products like FormTrak in Veeva, is really valuable to them. Down the road, our clients will have even more options to access all of our real-world data to really help them improve their market access, which is exciting.

Which company principle resonates most with you?

I would say the humility, gratitude, and learning principle. Every day, I learn something new about Norstella’s business, or about how a client uses one of MMIT’s products or datasets. I’m curious by nature, so I always want to gain new information from a call, whether it’s an internal call or a client meeting.

What would you tell someone just starting their career with MMIT?

Don’t be afraid to ask a lot of questions! Most importantly, you should strive to learn why we do things in a certain way, and what purpose everything serves. Why does this product exist? Why is it integrated into this other product? It’s important to connect our reasoning and rationale for our products and processes across the Norstella ecosystem. Understanding how everything fits together will help you understand Norstella’s overall mission.

Where do you see Norstella in the next year or two?

While my daily work only touches on a small slice of Norstella, I do see our unified real-world data growing significantly in the next few years. Once we can connect all our products together, our clients will be able to pull in whatever kind of real-world data they want, in addition to coverage data, from the platform of their choice, whether that be Coverage Finder or Analytics or FormTrak in Veeva. They’ll be able to pull in lab data, for example, and it will be integrated and aligned with what they’re trying to accomplish.

What do you like most about working at MMIT?

The people I work with, hands down. The culture at MMIT is the best I’ve ever had the opportunity to be a part of. Everybody I’ve worked with, even outside of my client delivery services team, has been so helpful and collaborative. They’re very open to your questions and to helping you, and we’re all aligned, working towards the same goal. Not every company is like that, and in fact, I would say it’s much more rare than common. It’s really great.

What do you like to do outside of work?

One of my passions is training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which I’ve been doing for about seven years now. It’s a fascinating sport that challenges me mentally as well as physically, and it is also quite a lot of fun. My wife and I are raising four daughters, ranging in age from 3 to 12, so they keep us very busy in general. Practicing jiu-jitsu is great exercise and a great release, and it reminds me to keep an open mind whenever I’m faced with a challenge – at home or at work!

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